"Frontmatter". In: Plant Genomics and Proteomics

S
UMMARY
The enormous amounts of data being generated by high-throughput
genomics have resulted in the need for developing expertise in the analysis
and storage of the data. The possible scale of the data that can range from
the description of a plant phenotype, through a complete genome sequence,
to the microarray analysis of all of the possible open reading frames under
various perturbations raises a number of new problems. How are the data
to be stored and interconnected, and for how long? As projects come to their
conclusion, what data are archived and remain accessible to the scientific
community, and what data disappear? The decisions about the longevity and
permanent archiving of data must be taken before the data are lost (or
become irretrievable). Organism-specific and more general databases have
been and are being developed for storage and manipulation of all of these
data. The websites associated with many of these databases also provide
S
U M M A R Y
1 8 5

---

access to the tools for the analysis of the data. A large number of informat-
ics tools are currently available, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to
decide which particular one is most appropriate to use. Because the devel-
opment of many of these programs still continues, with new programs also
being introduced, it is important that those that are available are supported
in some way, or at least hardened so that they are fully functional. As always,
it is important to remember that just because the informatic analysis pro-
vides a particular answer, the robustness of that conclusion must always be
checked. 
This chapter does not deal with the needs of microarray analysis or pro-
teomics, which have been covered in relevant sections elsewhere. However,
many of the sites referenced in this chapter also contain information and pro-
grams relevant to these techniques; for example, the TIGR site has a great
deal of information about microarray experimentation and analysis.